Portions of a damaged film. Excerpted from original shown during the Nuremburg trials and submitted as "Exhibit USA 280." Nuremberg trial transcripts of 13 December, 1945 include the following excerpted descriptions of the footage spoken by U.S. Commander William J. Donovan: "This is a strip of motion pictures taken, we believe, by a member of the S.S., and captured by the United States military forces in an S.S. barracks near Augsburg, Germany...We have not been able to establish beyond doubt in which area these films were made...The film offers undeniable evidence, made by Germans themselves, of almost incredible brutality to Jewish people in the custody of the Nazis, including German military units. It is believed by the prosecution that the scene is the extermination of a ghetto by Gestapo agents, assisted by military units...This film was made on an eight millimetre home camera...The pictures obviously were taken by an amateur photographer...it is burned...This is a silent film....I wish to...direct the Tribunal's attention to certain of the scenes. Scene 2: A naked girl running across the courtyard. Scene 3: An older woman being pushed past the camera, and a man in S.S. uniform standing at the right of the scene. Scene 5: A man with a skull-cap and a woman are manhandled. Scene 14: A half naked woman runs out of the crowd. Scene 15: Another half-naked woman runs through the house. Scene 16: Two men drag an old man out. Scene 18: A man in German military uniform, with his back to the camera, watches. Scene 24: A general shot of the street, showing fallen bodies and naked women running. Scene 32: A shot of the street, showing five fallen bodies. Scene 37: A man with a bleeding head is hit again. Scene 39: A soldier in German military uniform, with a rifle, stands by as a crowd concentrates on a man coming out of the house. Scene 44: A soldier with a rifle, in German military uniform, walks past a woman clinging to a torn blouse. Scene 45: A woman is dragged by her hair across the street.
A film titled 'Berlin conference 1945' shows United States President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes aboard the Cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) while on their way to Germany for Three-Power Berlin Peace Conference. Several views of President Truman aboard the USS Augusta. He salutes with hand over heart as U.S. Navy warships pass in review. Truman and Secretary of State, Byrnes, descend a stair on the ship. They are seated on deck and President Truman waves his hat at people on the shore, as the Augusta enters port at Antwerp, Belgium. Senior Allied officers come aboard to greet the President and his party. President Truman walks down the gangplank to the pier, followed by Secretary Byrnes. Truman and Byrnes in back seat of an open car, accompanied by Secret Service agents, waves to spectators as they drive off the pier. Later, a motorcade is seen passing parked airplanes. Truman greets Officers of the U.S. Army 35th Division. He boards Air Force One, the "Sacred Cow," a VC-54C aircraft (tail number: 2107451) at Brussels Airport, Belgium. The Air Force One seen in flight above clouds and then parking at airfield in Germany. Presidential motorcade in Berlin, on Unter Den Linden, and passing through the Brandenburg Gate. Portraits of Truman, Stalin, and Churchill, on stone pillars. Inserted scenes of Hitler in motorcade and speaking in Berlin. President Truman speaking in an outdoor venue, with General Omar Bradley and other high ranking American officers standing behind him. His remarks are broadcast and people shown listening in America
Internees at a concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany. Otto Feuer, a Jewish internee from Hamburg states how he has been in concentration camps for past so many years. He thanks the American Army for liberating them from the concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany on April 11, 1945. Other internees in the background.
Dead bodies of prisoners from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, operated by Nazi Germany in Ettersberg near Weimar Germany. World War 2 U.S. Army Cameraman slate indicates footage is from Buchenwald and was filmed on April 14, 1945, soon after the camp's liberation on April 11 by American forces. Dead bodies of prisoners lie on ground. Emaciated and tortured bodies of atrocity victims seen piled up in a truck. Dead man with a beard. Different bodies piled up in a truck. Faces of the dead bodies.
'Problems of Peace in Europe' produced in 1948, depicts reconstruction problems in aftermath of World War II and includes footage from during the war and soon after the war. Scene of desperate and hungry civilian people (possibly in Germany but could be elsewhere in Europe) scrambling over each other and trying to find food on the ground among garbage or wreckage, circa 1945 or 1946. European peoples massing to reestablish political order and seek relief in post-war Europe. Montage of images of people from all walks of life. Reminders of war showing aircrews in bombers and bombs falling. Batteries of rockets being fired. A formation of U.S. B-17s and a B-26 aircraft with D-day stripes, in flight. Allied bombing of cities with devastating effect (likely 1944-1945). Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Aerial view of a major U.S. industrial complex, with many smoke stacks and industrial pollution. Mass of workers leaving at end of shift at a U.S. manufacturing plant or factory. Views of two different streamlined locomotives pulling passenger trains at high speed, approaching camera position. Freight trains speeding on railroads. Farmers harvesting and baling hay by machine and cultivating fields with tractor. Multiple wide views of the K-25 building of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, in Oak Ridge Tennessee, the world's largest building in 1944 when it was built, and an instrumental part of the Manhattan Project effort to develop the atomic bomb in World War 2. Huge sprawling industrial sites in America. Map of Europe. Street scene in Germany with destroyed buildings and rubble cleaned from street, but still piled up in places. Desperate, hungry, and poverty stricken German citizens rummaging through garbage piles for anything to eat or anything of value. Two very young German boys standing together on a street, with one boy smoking a cigarette. Children scrambling over trash and rubbish heaps.
German rocket pioneer, Gerhard Zucker, attempting to develop postal rockets in the 1930s. Location is Wadden Sea off Cuxhaven, on April 9, 1933, where Zucker follows Nazi Sturmabteilung (also called SA or Stormtroopers) carrying the mail rocket across wet sands. The rocket is set up on a launch stand. Zucker and an assistant ignite the 8 side rockets and the mail rocket takes off. It noses up and loops over backwards, falling to the sand. German Stormtroopers lift up the damaged device. Next, is seen a later, more modern, rocket trial ending in failure. Two German engineers display a model similar to the pulse-jet-powered "buzz bomb" (V-1) employed by the Nazis in World War 2. A brief glimpse of similar American machine on sand flat, as narrator states German acknowledgement of knowledge gleaned from Dr. Robert Goddard's work. A German V-1 flying bomb (aka Doodle Bug) being launched in 1944, during World War 2. View of British houses of Parliament, London, England; an air raid shelter sign in City of Westminster. Londoners waiting out a raid in the shelter. Scenes of fire and destruction during German bombing of London, as narrator speaks about the more advanced German V-2 ballistic missiles employed later in the war. Londoners trudging through debris amongst bombed out buildings. Change of scene to U.S. infantry and armor advancing deep into Germany. Narrator refers to them overrunning rocket bases and other vital war-making facilities, near the end of the war. Glimpse of large number of German prisoners of war. Documents of military surrender being signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, in Berlin, May 8, 1945. Closeup of Keitel. Scenes of American forces operating in Pacific theater. Aerial view of atomic bomb explosion. Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. U.S. soldiers and other service personnel return home and greeting loved ones at end of war. Aerial view of Pentagon building and surrounding area in Arlington Virginia near Washington DC. U.S. troops boarding a ship in San Francisco, bound for war again, this time in Korea (1950).
CRITICALPAST.COM: About Us | Contact Us | FAQs - How to Order | License Agreement | My Account | My Lightboxes | Shopping Cart | Advanced Search | Featured Collections | Website Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy ©2026 CriticalPast LLC.
License Agreement |
Terms & Conditions |
Privacy Policy
©2026 CriticalPast LLC.